And You Were Invincible
by Pensez-a-Erik
Summary: Written for Timebird84's prompt, 'farewell.' Post-musical, inspired heavily by the song Moonlight by Jasmine Cephas Jones. Christine finds herself grieving and pondering over the man that once pretended to be her Angel.


**_Hey! Im back again with another angst-filled oneshot. Sorry. One of these days I'll write something happy, I swear!_****_That said, please tell me your thoughts!_**

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There were so many 'what-ifs' in Christine Daae's life that she was beginning to become exhausted. They kept her up late at night after all the fancy galas had ended and she'd doffed the glamorous dress that she would wear once, then discard to the back of a closet for the rest of eternity. When she crawled into bed and curled in the arms of her fiancé, as he whispered sweet nothings into her ear and tried to bring her sleeping soul to life. They didn't truly do anything of course-- Raoul was too polite and proper to not wait until marriage. It had taken her days of convincing to even allow her to sleep in the same bed as him once the nightmares had gotten too awful to handle.

Even with him, though, her insomnia persisted until she alone lay awake at odd hours in the night, feeling as if she were the only person awake in the universe. The blankets tickling her chin, her eyes staring into the dark shadows of the room. Eventually, her tired, tired gaze would drift over to her dresser, the one that belonged only to her, and she would be swept away as quickly as the night had descended.

A small clip of newspaper sat inside that dresser. On the bottom shelf, wedged far in the back along with her pantaloons and shifts and other dainties that she knew Raoul would not touch (not that he'd ever go through her things anyway, for her was too nice and perfect a fiancé to do such a thing), hidden in the hole of a wadded up pair of tights, wrapped around a porcelain mask.

The newspaper clipping was short. The article itself had been longer, long enough to detail all of the events following the tragic opera's conclusion, but she'd cut out all the excess to keep the one line. It was nothing more than one single sentence, one little line, yet it was a sentence that repeated in her head as if her mind were a phonograph playing a one-line song that would echo and echo and echo until her heart gave out.

_The Phantom of the Opera was dead._

On such a night she'd carefully slip from her fiancé's arms, laying a small kiss on his perfect forehead, and leave with her blue cape trailing behind her. In the beginning, she had snuck out as quietly as possible in fear of the servants noticing and informing Raoul. Quickly, though, she'd stopped disguising herself and her intentions, regardless of whether or not any servants saw. Raoul had never spoken to her about her nightly flights, so she assumed he either did not know or trusted her enough to let her go without question.

Each night she felt the need to escape her fiancé's home, she found herself traveling to a small hill on the outskirts of town, in a small park that was long abandoned at night, watching over the Seine.

Christine liked to imagine that small spot was where he would have been buried had he been given a proper burial. Watching over the river where it was calm and beautiful. He would have enjoyed the sight, she thought. Of course, she'd never truly know for sure, but she likes to think that he would.

There were quite a few things she wondered if he would have enjoyed. The little sweet pastries that she fancied at her favorite pâtisserie, where the family who worked there knew her by name. She did not know if he even enjoyed sweets, or any food for that matter, for she'd never seen him eat at all. Not when she'd only known him as a man for all of seven months, six of those spent when he was recedeed beneath the catacombs.

Her hand brushed the soft grass below her shoes, and she slowly knelt, carefully as to prevent any grass stains. Her hand rested on the soft ground, not quite pressing into the soil.

"I saw Meg again today," she said. "And Madame Giry. For the first time since Don Juan. She… she gave me your mask. Said that Meg had found it on your throne."

Up above the moon was the only illumination in the little park, reflecting off the Seine and casting her shadow along the little hill. Her nails curled into the grass, fingers intertwining with the strands and tugging them free. "Up until that point I suppose a small part of me had hoped otherwise… that you might still be alive. That the newspaper was wrong. But you'd never leave your mask behind. A-and the gendarme said that there was so much blood after the mob came to your home… I guess there wasn't really much hope."

She swallowed. And let the grass strands fall from her fingers.

"I'm not saying that I've forgiven you, though," her breath was hushed. "Because I haven't. You betrayed and lied to me-- but you didn't deserve to die. I don't even know your name, you never told it to me. I don't quite know how to address you as." She rubbed furiously at her eyes.

"You're a real angel now, aren't you? But I can't call you an angel. Not anymore. And… phantom seems to unhuman, as if you weren't a person. But you are- or were- a person. Even if I didn't know you that well."

A pause as a carriage rolled down the street, loud against the silence of the night. Once gone, she continued. "I wish you'd talked to me. Hadn't lied from the beginning, and hadn't pretended to be someone you were not. Who knows how things might have gone, then? I just have so many questions."

Her chest rose and fell as she took and exhaled a deep breath. All the anger that had fueled her soul during and after the initial confrontation down in the catacombs had long faded. Christine had never been one to hold a grudge… now all that was left was a steady sense of disappointment and loss. Perhaps she should have been angry, mad and hurt at him for lying so much and twisting her father's stories to benefit himself.

Now she was simply confused. This man that had once seemed so powerful and invincible lay dead somewhere, hopefully beneath the earth. She didn't even know, her last glimpse of him had been nearly enough to break her. Eyes wide and blurry with the tears that ran down his unmasked face, lips slightly open and hands quivering, having not even moved since she'd grasped hands tightly in her own, pressing the little obsidian ring into his palm.

Now he was dead, and the sun was beginning its slow ascent over the horizon. In a few minutes she would have to bid the little grave goodbye, and once again leave behind the man she would never truly know, and return to the warm, waiting arms of her fiancé and forget that she had ever left at all.


End file.
